The Brewmaster
by SheegothBait
Summary: On the word of a friend and colleague, just-out-of-med-school Angela Ziegler travels to Galway Ireland over vacation and meets someone she does not expect in a bar. The following conversation might save the individual's life, but it also might plant seeds of dangerous ambition Angela cannot destroy. T for safety.
1. Chapter 1

So for this fic, I've aged Angela down to about 26 or so, give or take three years. (16-19 year age difference, maybe?). It should also be assumed that she has not been recruited by Overwatch yet. She is young, eager to meet great scientific minds, and earning for purpose. So hopefully this addresses any confusion you as my reader might encounter.

Also, I genuinely apologize for those who have more knowledge of brewing and alcohol than I do. I had to Wiki this stuff, as my experience with alcohol and the process of beer-making is limited to basic knowledge and a few gin-and-tonics.

Thank you, feel free to let me know if you have questions, and please enjoy.  
***********************

Angela blamed her friend for this.

Katja, her close friend and study partner-turned-coworker, had taken a semester abroad to study biodiversity, traveling Europe's cities and providences, snapping pictures, and generally making Angela quite jealous of the many, many destinations, rural and urban alike, that she wound up at. The conferences all sounded so fascinating, and the landscapes were awe-inspiring, excepting Ireland, which, according to Katja, had been so foggy that she could get very few actual pictures. And yet from Ireland came the strangest text Katja had sent over her studies abroad.

 _You_ HAVE TO _see this._

The attached link was to a bar somewhere in Galway, but Katja wouldn't explain it. She'd looked the place up out of curiosity. It didn't seem particularly special, with a 3.6 star rating and reviews touting its cheap, tasty beer but also noting that the decor was "old-fashioned" and the bartender could be…the reviews said "rude" and "sarcastic", but they probably meant something else. Angela failed to understand why the bar was worth visiting, and attempted inquiries got her nowhere, other than further insistence that Angela should visit the place. So she'd blocked out a week in mid-April, as not much was happening then, made reservations, booked a plane ticket, and flown here.

Upon arriving after spending a few days in Dublin, she thought that Katja, who knew her so well, was pranking her.

One look told her she'd probably hate the place. The cluster of people hanging out outside the door, cigarettes waggling from their mouths as they talked, was enough to make her choke even though she stood across the sign-lit street, the faint din of laughter and jumbled conversation enough to make her reconsider going back to the hotel for earplugs. But Katja insisted that she go inside to "have a look around".

She crossed the street and, holding her breath, weaved her way through the smokers lingering outside the door. She cracked the door open and slipped inside, but was nearly catapulted back out by the blast of noise that met her.

Irish music belted at top volume from speakers that vanished amidst the shadowed ceiling. Much of the bar was still bedecked in festive gold and green; tinsel boas clung to every railing, and light-up shamrocks hung in strings from the ceiling. Neon signs featuring a scowling leprechaun with his fists raised flickered here and there. It was ludicrously over-the-top this far past St. Patrick's Day, but, unlike most of the copy-and-paste "futuristic" bars, with their plastic-and metal furniture, strobe lighting, and indistinguishable techno beats, she supposed it had a certain charm.

To somebody else, perhaps Katja.

She peered through the crowd. Apparently there was someone here she knew, but she didn't see anyone of note. The chattering, shouting, laughing mass of people, cast in shadow by the poor lighting, were indistinguishable from one another, and even when she got a closer look at some of them, she still didn't recognize anybody, man or woman. She shrugged and squeezed through the crowd towards the better-lit bar. She was here already; she might as well try the beer.

The bartender was mopping up the counter while a patron groused over his spilled drink. Like the bar surrounding her, the bartender herself was bedecked in a gold and green cross-hatched black vest and plain but still striking emerald tie worn over a black suit, her short, perfectly-groomed flame-red hair clashing brilliantly with the vibrant greens surrounding her. Angela squinted at the almost-stereotypically Irish woman. She did seem vaguely familiar, but Angela could not remember where she'd seen the woman before.

"Hey kid, you do know this spot's reserved, right?"

She turned to face a man frowning down on her. He was pointing to a sign behind the bar that said BAR RESERVED: VIP ONLY.

"I just want a beer, and then I'll leave," she said coolly, refusing to let this "v.i.p." treat her like a doormat.

The man scowled at her, then turned.

"Hey, Moira!"

Angela swallowed a gasp. The name was definitely familiar, but the woman could just have the same name. The bartender turned, and sharp eyes scrutinized the man from beneath razor eyebrows. Angela couldn't quite make out the woman's eyes, the incontrovertible proof that this woman was who Angela thought she was, but peering too closely at the woman's face might lead to some uncomfortable questions. Moira turned and analyzed her with the same piercing gaze, but the light was too dim to make out the precise color of the woman's irises.

"Yes?"

The man jabbed a thumb at her. "Kid's hogging my space. Do me favor and get her a beer so that she gets outta my hair."

"Anything for such charming company," Moira said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. The Irish woman peered down at Angela. "That'll be two-fifty."

Angela passed over the money, and Moira disappeared for a moment, returning with not a bottle, but a full pint of foamy amber brew. The stein rattled against the countertop as she set it down. An annoyed look crossed the bartender's face, and she turned away, giving her right arm a brief but vigorous shake. Angela gasped. In that motion, the light had briefly reflected off her face in such a way that she'd seen the woman's heterochromic eyes. She was only familiar with one person who had that specific genetic mutation.

 _Impossible._

Moira O'Deorain- infamous, estranged geneticist- was standing right in front of her. Serving alcohol.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Angela found a quieter corner in the back, sharing her table with a couple that seemed more interested in the feel of each other's lips on various parts of their faces than her as they got progressively more and more drunk. She sipped her beer in silence, composing her thoughts. How would she even initiate a conversation with the imposing woman, and when would this bloody bar clear out enough so that they could have a relatively normal talk? She wanted to ask the woman so many questions; what was she doing here, why did she leave the sciences, why _bartending_ of all things, and most importantly, how did she brew her beer? The amber liquid was indeed delicious, and at the price Moira was selling it, Angela was shocked she could make any money at all.

A more troubling thought occurred to her. Was this what Katja wanted her to find? A washed-out genius stuck in some ass-end job in an obscure corner of Galway, Ireland? True, Angela may not like Moira's methods, but that didn't necessarily mean Angela _wanted_ her to fail. Nobody deserved failure, especially in something they truly loved. The Irish scientist was probably suffocating here, chained by the weight of a damaged reputation and drowning in some sub-par job. She could only imagine how that would feel; she was only just rising in the medical community herself, and she adored what she did. To have her career ended so abruptly and harshly would probably have devastating effects on her. She sat, pondering this as the people slowly filtered out around her. The more angles she looked at the Moira-the-bartender puzzle from, the more depressing it became. Did those tremors in Moira's hands have anything to do with where she currently was?

The music stopped as the night wore on, leaving an eerie, ringing quiet in its place. Lights flickered on, their switches flipped by unseen hands, and waiters spread out and began to clean the tables, ushering the last few customers out the door. She stood up as one of the staff approached her.

"I know you're closing," she said preemptively, "but I want to speak with the bartender."

The man's mouth thinned. "All right, but make it quick."

Moira was polishing the glassware, her face set in a slight frown as she rubbed at the wall of the beer stein she held. She looked up as Angela approached.

"We're closing for the night. You want more, come back tomorrow," she said flatly.

"I just want to talk."

"Then come back tomorrow. I'll still be here," she told Angela, focusing her attention back on the stein.

"Please, Doctor O'Deorain."

Moira set the stein down with a little more force than necessary and leveled a scorching look at her. "No one's called me that in a long time. Why are you here?"

"One of my friends told me there was someone here I would recognize. I studied and still study in the medical field. I'm familiar with your name and your research."

Moira tossed her towel onto the bar and put her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing, her tall, lean form towering above Angela. "Explain yourself," she demanded. "Because if you're interested in an interview, I'll throw you out right now."

"She bothering you, Moira?" One of the staff asked, his tone threatening.

"I'm just looking for the truth. Just for myself. And maybe a friend." Angela said.

Moira paused for a long moment, appraising her. "Fine," she said finally. "But make it short, Miss Ziegler. It's late." She walked out from behind the bar and sat down at one of the tables, gesturing at the empty seat across from her. The waiter let her shoulder go, and she joined the tall Irish woman.

"So, Miss Ziegler? Where do your…inquires…start?" Moira asked, lacing her long fingers together and peering at Angela, her mouth and eyes both narrowed in warning.

"What actually happened to you? I saw the news and heard what they said, but I've been watching you most of the night and-"

"And your conclusions?"

"Something's not right here. I don't think the news gave us the whole story."

"As it is wont to," Moira drawled. "And you're right. You know I was thrown out of Futura Genetics for my methodologies, but that's not the real reason why they tossed me out. They could have cared less about that." She pulled her hands apart and set her right hand on the tabletop. It quivered of its own accord, _ta-tapp_ ing against the wood in an uneven rhythm.

Indignation flared inside Angela, her hands clenching involuntarily on the table. "A shaky hand? That's all they fired you for?"

"It was worse before the medication. I was working in my lab one day, and I knocked over some of the chemical vials by accident. The reaction caused a fire. I tried to contain it, but they had to evacuate the building."

Angela stared at her in shock. "But that's-"

"Discrimination, I know. I can't file a lawsuit against them, though. My colleagues advised me many times to hire an assistant to help avoid lab accidents, but I wouldn't listen. And because they fired me for my _incorrect,_ " she spat the word, "methods, I can't take Futura to court."

"And what _were_ your methods?" Angela asked, raising an eyebrow.

Moira snorted. "No less immoral than what they are practicing on the Lunar Base. I trust as a good scientist you're keeping up with their research?"

"I know they're studying human intelligence through the use of apes."

"Keep looking into it and judge me according to _their_ work, then." Moira stood up.

Angela also stood up. "But why stay here? And why _bartending_? It doesn't seem-"

Moira let out a humorless bark of laughter. "It doesn't seem like me? True, it's not my first choice for a job, but I do have my reasons." Her face hardened. "It would be nearly impossible to find a job in the scientific community with my current reputation, and I had to face the fact that my career in the research field was over due to a combination of my own pride and human stupidity. My father left me his bar in his will, so I came back here and picked up where he left off."

"But why not sell it and move on?"

"Because, Miss Ziegler, it was easier for me to just disappear. Here, no one knows me by my scientific reputation, just by my father's name and what he left behind. It was a chance to start over for me, however…menial… the position." The Irish woman turned and began to walk away.

"But are you happy here?"

"I am...", she hesitated, "…accustomed to this."

"Would you go back if you could?"

Moira froze. Her head slowly turned, looking back at Angela. "Come here, Miss Ziegler. I want to show you something your kindred mind might be interested in."

Angela cautiously followed her into a locked backroom and down a flight of stairs. Two doors led off the staircase. The first was aged, warped wood with fading silver letters spelling CELLAR, but the other was steel, fitted with a keypad. Moira fished a ring of keys from her pocket, inserted a key, and typed in an eight-digit passcode with a speed that made Angela's head spin. The door opened silently, and a wash of warm, moist air flooded out. Angela followed the bartender and found herself in half-miniature hothouse, half-laboratory surrounded by racks of equipment and wheat, barley, and hop plants that grew from floor to ceiling. She wasn't an expert on beer or hops, but she was pretty sure the cone-shaped fruits weren't supposed to be the size of her palm. Moira crossed to one of the plants and rolled one of the oversized fruits in her hand.

"I've been breeding and engineering my father's high-yield seeds for years, tweaking the genes of my crops to ensure the greatest harvest and the best taste. My beer uses _only_ my modified seeds." She turned to Angela. "I've studied the chemical composition of my most popular blind-taste-test flavors and tweaked my crops to produce these precise chemical compounds. This is all I have left from my previous work and interests, but it's kept my mind relatively busy and my bills paid."

"And that?" Angela pointed to the barley.

"I planned to do the same thing with whiskey. Considering my current prognosis, however, I doubt I'll live to see results." Moira's voice took on a heavy, sharp, bitter tone, as though absorbing the flavor of the hops around her.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because that is how the die of chance was cast, Miss Ziegler. This may look impressive," she gestured to her equipment, "but it is not sufficient to help me, and I do not have the tools to deal with my genetic insufficiency. Eventually this," she extended her trembling hand and eyed it with distaste, "will consume me."

An idea exploded into Angela's head. "You don't have access to the things you need, but _I_ might. If you gave me instructions on what to do, I could send you the results, and you might be able to help yourself," she offered. "Or I might even be able to get some equipment or supplies if you need it."

Moira straightened and cocked her head in curiosity, her dual-colored eyes gleaming. "A most generous offer, Miss Ziegler. But tell me; what is your price for this?"

"I want to keep in regular contact. I mean, you're one of the smartest minds in genetics…well, ever, right? Maybe you can help me with my research."

The geneticist-turned-bartender laughed. "Flattery is not needed to win my approval. Of course I can help you, and I'd be glad to as long as you can help me."

Angela stuck out a hand, and Moira wrapped her own long, cold, pale fingers around Angela's shorter, warmer ones in a short but surprisingly strong handshake.

"I'll be in touch, Miss Ziegler. Oh, and do me a favor by keeping my little lab a secret, would you?"

"Done."

Moira's smile widened. "Good." She glanced around, her eyes glittering in anticipation. "I may have to make some modifications to my work space…"

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

 **A/N:** The inspiration for this fic...

Dare I say it came to me in a dream? Because that is literally what happened. I woke up with the image of Moira the bartender stamped into my head and I was like "hey, I'm gonna make this work because POTATOES" (and because I wanted to see Moira dressed in festive colors).

So here it is, with as little sense as it makes. Hopefully I've stayed in character, if not in canon, and hopefully you enjoyed part one. I'm thinking this will be broken into three parts.

Hope to see you next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

So the acquaintance began. Moira, though condescending in person, was much more stiff and formal in email form, her vocabulary choice bafflingly complex for a simple electronic correspondence. Not that she was particularly _difficult_ to understand, but Angela often felt like she was speaking either to a representative of some government agency or a legal counsel member. Even Angela's subtle nudges had failed to dissuade the geneticist from this peculiar habit, and Angela had slowly gotten used to it. Apart from this odd personality quirk, however, Moira seemed ready and able to help her on anything she might ask about, from anoxic bacteria to zymogen granules, especially when it came to issues on genetics. Angela had groused, during one of their conversations, that so many of the world's diseases could be fixed by repairing abnormal genes and if they could find a safe way to do it, the world would be so much better. Moira had been quick to agree, and upon hearing that Angela's research institute was studying the potential of nanobots, had requested a sample. Angela had only been allowed to take one out of the labs after jumping through many, many legal and company-imposed hoops, but Moira was delighted to have it, judging by her less-formal-than-usual thank-you email upon receiving the sample. Angela had told her that they had not gotten the nanobots to any particularly useful degree of functionality and promised to credit her as soon as possible with any progress made, but Moira simply told her not to concern herself with this detail.

Two weeks later, Moira sent the sample back, and laboratory tests revealed that the machines lasted _hours_ , even when performing such complex tasks like rearranging tissue cells.

The resounding breakthrough shocked Angela's world. Her coworkers and superiors heaped praise and promotions upon her. Without really understanding what Moira had done to the microscopic machines and with the new title of lead researcher under her belt, she refocused the lab's efforts into using the technology for healing purposes. They ran successful test after test on mending incisions in cloned animal tissue, and though each success made her more hopeful, it also made her nervous. Her thoughts began to swirl with concern about how the technology would be used if a terrorist organization managed to reverse-engineer it. Could it be used to destroy as well as create, and how easy would it be to reverse the technology's intended use?

Her fears came to a head when she was approached by representatives of the Vishkar Corporation wanting her help with technological development in the medical field. She staunchly refused their tempting offers, concerned about the megacorporation's flexible morals. She knew the corporation had its fingers in many, many monetary pies, including weapons development, and she didn't want to know what the technology would do to humans if its purpose was reversed.

Just when she was about to yank all ties to the nanobiotics and expunge her data, though, Overwatch threw her a lifeline. They offered her a position as their doctor and scientific researcher. She negotiated; she would join, as long as her technology wasn't released to the public, including the data her former lab had on the tech. Overwatch, a force for good and world-renowned heroism, understood her terms and accepted her.

Through it all, Moira hovered in the background of her thoughts, a curt but constant companion she could count on for advice and insight. Like Angela, her career had taken off upon successful application of the nanomachines. She had sold her modified seed for outrageous prices and used the fame gained from the transaction to put herself back into a favorable light in the scientific community.

From there, she had found a job in Oasis and quickly repaired her reputation. She hadn't shared the secrets of how the nanomachines worked, she'd told Angela, but she was utilizing them in such a way that her genetic research was rocketing forward at an unprecedented pace. So much to discover, she'd said, and hundreds of ways to apply her work. There were, after all, so, _so_ many in need of her work. Angela congratulated her, but urged caution after reading Moira's research. It did seem she was moving awfully quickly; two months of testing, and the Irish geneticist was using rabbits, eighteen months, and the woman was looking for human volunteers. Moira had responded to her concern in a somewhat patronizing tone that she was giving humanity the best she had to offer, and Angela needn't worry her head about the methods because Oasis was a beacon of science and progress. Most, if not all, citizens living in Oasis believed in the strength and healing power of the sciences, and those that came to her for help desperately needed what she could give. After all, Angela supported science, didn't she?

This worried Angela, but the Swiss woman pushed the thoughts aside. It was easy to condemn things like war, but if it was research, the moral ambiguity fell into the gray area. Was Moira helping people or exploiting them? She couldn't say; the few interviews she'd seen from Moira's patients had praised the geneticist's skill, and Moira's continued publications fell very much into that foggy area of uncertainty. She wasn't hurting people, but there was still that _potential_ for harm. Genetics in particular was a risky, tricky business, and one mistake, one miscalculation, could permanently scar an individual for life. Still, Moira was incredibly successful and incredibly smart, and she'd helped Angela's career take off. By Oasis standards, she wasn't doing anything wrong, and as long as she hadn't hurt anyone, Angela supposed that she could accept her mentor's methods as long as Moira didn't try to push her ambiguous moral standards onto her.

After all, Angela owed her for her success, or she'd be still stuck as a lab assistant, mindlessly analyzing blood and tissue samples.

This increasingly uncomfortable relationship between her and Moira continued, even as Angela gave Moira the news about Overwatch. As usual, her mentor responded with cool, formal congratulations, like the printed note in a store-bought card. Several months of silence passed between them, but she barely noticed; her new duties had her rushing from war-torn country to national tragedy, extending a helping hand to those who most desperately needed it. Never before had she felt so busy, so tired, or so fulfilled; this was what she had always wanted, to help others as a face of peace in the world. The leaders of Overwatch and even its offshoot, Blackwatch, quickly made her their poster child. The members of the two branches, though sometimes holding conflicting ideals, both liked her equally, and she became a moderating force between the two. Her face began appearing all over their posters, her in her winged Valkyrie suit leaping into action, brandishing her Caduceus staff at the heavens like a totem of victory. Her interactions with Moira had almost faded from her mind until she collapsed at her desk one day and found the following message, from one Doctor O'Deorain, with an address for a bar in Oasis attached.

 _Meet me here . I want to talk._

 _VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV_

"Why here, Moira?" Angela wiped away the beads of sweat dripping from her forehead, tucking herself closer to the bar's walls to avoid the bustling others that kept glancing at the pair. The Irish woman didn't seem to notice the people or feel the heat, even though she wore a calf-length lab coat over top her usual black. Her mismatched eyes glanced to the bar sign.

"It's a good place to meet people." She smirked and turned. "My vehicle is not far."

Angela followed, trotting to keep up with the geneticist's long stride as the ex-bartender approached a nondescript white vehicle and got in. She slid in beside the woman, noting the way her flame-red hair got smushed against the too-short-for-Moira ceiling. The vehicle itself was showroom clean, with absolutely nothing inside to indicate ownership other than the little double-helix dangling from the key fob.

"Where did you get that?" Angela fingered the metal DNA molecule.

"An admirer looking for more," O'Deorain said, entering a destination address into the vehicle's computer. "She was most upset when I turned her down." She leaned back in her seat and smoothed her ruffled hairdo as the vehicle took to the air.

Angela frowned. "Why keep it, then?"

"It keeps my mind set on my ultimate goal and how I can't afford distraction. You should keep a similar trinket as well."

"I do."

"I don't suppose it's a little angel, is it?"

Angela gave her a sharp look. Moira smirked back, a huge, mocking, Cheshire grin. For the most part, the Swiss doctor had forgotten how sarcastic the Irish woman could be.

"As a matter of fact, it is." Angela lifted her chin, proud of the fact.

"Our guardian angel. _Someone's_ got to protect the poor people," Moira said, her tone thick with patronization.

"Is it just me, or have you gotten even more condescending than usual?"

"Oh, it's not you, dear. I've always been this way, but I'm really and truly enjoying myself for the first time in a long time. You just haven't been around me long enough to recognize my particular brand of humor." She smiled again and closed her eyes contentedly.

"Ha, ha. Very funny." Angela rolled her eyes. "How do the lab techs tolerate you for days at a time?"

"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I don't exactly need them anymore."

The blond doctor straightened. "What? A new medicine or treatment? Something that helped you?"

The geneticist flashed her teeth in a smile. "I'll show you soon."

"But you were careful, right?"

Moira opened her eyes and looked at her haughtily, but didn't answer. The rest of the ride was spent in uncomfortable silence. The vehicle stopped in front of a high-rise. The Irish woman got out and swept inside, not waiting for Angela to follow. The Swiss woman glanced around as she entered. The building was clearly upmarket; the first floor was laid out much like the reception area of a hotel; chandelier, well-lit desk, small lobby where a couple people in business suits were working. A bouncer appeared and blocked Angela's way, scowling down at her behind dark sunglasses.

"She's with me," Moira said, waving the man off, taking Angela by the shoulder, and steering her towards the elevator. "You'd best stick with me, dear. This complex doesn't take kindly to strangers, no matter who you are." She smiled at Angela knowingly. "Security reasons; a lot of important or rich people here."

They rode the wood-paneled elevator to the third floor from the top. The geneticist keyed them into her apartment, and Angela looked around.

"Nice place."

Moira's apartment looked like a promotional photo; complementing shades of grays and steel covered the kitchen, the living-room bedecked in simple white and black with modernized crystal accents here and there. The huge window just off the living room overlooked Oasis and the tops of other skyscrapers below. It looked so clean that it barely seemed lived in at all.

"Whiskey?" The geneticist offered, placing two glasses onto the counter.

"Please."

Moira slid a glass with one finger's worth of ruddy liquid across the granite countertop to her. She picked it up, took a sip, and grimaced as it burned its way down her throat.

"This your whiskey?"

"Of course." O'Deorain smirked at her and padded across to the low white sofa, draping herself across it like an oversized cat, one arm across the top.

"You haven't noticed yet," the Irish doctor mocked gently.

"What, that you haven't taken your coat off?" Angela retorted.

The geneticist's smug grin didn't falter. "My lab coat is the most valuable piece of clothing I own. I've missed it far too much to take it off in present company."

Angela took a seat in one of the other chairs. "You really are married to your work, aren't you?"

Moira waved her free hand amicably. "Dedication is the key to success, as you know, Miss Ziegler. I set my sights on a goal, and I work towards it, though it might be frustratingly out of reach from where I stand at the moment."

"You have some goal in mind?"

The Irish woman glanced out the window. "The position as Minister of Genetics here. Imagine how much of a difference I could make if I had all of Oasis' ears listening to my counsel and all their interests invested in my research. But my past reputation has people worried, so all I can do is keep working. They'll come around."

"So…about your research. What about it did you want to tell me?"

Moira put down her whiskey glass and extended her right hand. Angela watched for a long moment.

"No tremors." She looked up at Moira, incredulous. "You found a cure?"

"I _created_ a cure. I looked at my blood before and after, and I cannot find any residual markers from the disease."

Angela stared at her, her whiskey quite forgotten. "I would love to analyze a sample."

The Irish woman scoffed at her. "That's _my_ research. Besides, I doubt you would clear the cure; it's not certified for use."

"You tested on _yourself?_ Without knowing if it was safe or not?" The Swiss doctor ogled the geneticist, askance.

"Others offered themselves up before I tested on myself." She picked her drink up and took another swig.

Angela's shock dissipated, replaced by outright horror. "But that violates-"

"The Hippocratic oath. So you say, Miss Ziegler, but the people I treated would have died otherwise."

"What would have happened to those people if you had caused them _more_ troubles, though?"

"Therein is the price of successful research. They know and accept the risks involved in experimental trials and could have returned to me at any time for additional help."

Angela slammed her whiskey onto the coffee table, liquor sloshing everywhere. "We have a duty _not_ to hurt people, O'Deorain! They come to us for help, trusting in our skill to make them better, not to take risks with their lives! What if they had died? What about their _families,_ Moira? Don't you _care_?"

Moira set her own glass down carefully and leveled a steady, cold look at her over top of her steepled fingers. "So you deny what I did actually helped these people?"

"I deny your opinion of right and wrong, yes! You could have _killed_ somebody!"

"And yet you stand here, refusing beneficial research on the grounds of morality because I might _possibly_ cause a death. You're limiting help to those who might need it because you're afraid of consequences. As I have told you before, those who come to me are well aware of the risks and accept them." Moira stood up, towering over her. "You're no scientist."

"I am a scientist that works within the grounds of my moral coding, an area which you seem to sorely _lack_ ," Angela snapped, getting to her feet.

"You fear what you do not understand and urge caution where caution will impede progress. You fail to accept the inherent risks that come with any kind of research because you are afraid of the consequences, and you cower from that like a child, unwilling to take responsibility for you work." Moira's thin mouth curled in an ugly sneer. "Oh, I know your type perfectly. You're the type that would snuff out Oasis just on principle. You just didn't have the power to _do_ it."

"You've changed for the worse, O'Deorain."

The geneticist let out a bark of laughter. "I may have been stuck at some dead-end job in Ireland, but I never stopped dreaming of a better humanity. You just finally cleared the haze of admiration from your eyes and didn't like what you saw."

"If I had known what you would become, I would have left you there. I was mistaken to help you."

"The best mistake you could have made." Moira smirked at her, dual-colored eyes glittering with dark humor. "Humanity thanks you for your sacrifice." She picked up her drink, raised it as though toasting Angela, and sipped.

"You disgust me," the Swiss doctor spat.

"And you're a blind fool. The future of humanity is coming, Dr. Ziegler and there will be no place for the close-minded there, as there is no longer a place for you here. I trust you'll see yourself out." She drank the rest of her whiskey at one swallow and indicated the door.

"You're a disgrace to the scientific community. I'm ashamed to even be associated with you, and I will do my best to stop you."

"You can't touch me here, Miss Ziegler. Both of us know that. So spend your time on more useful pursuits."

"But I _will_ try anyway," Angela snapped, then turned on her heel and stormed out.

 **A/N:** Oh my goodness.

It seems in my haste to post this I made a character error. This updated chapter provides a short half-line about Mercy promising to give Moira credit for her work, but Moira refusing the credit for her own purposes.

I hope this helps clear any OOC issues.


	3. Chapter 3

After the schism at the apartment, Angela sent several follow-up letters to Doctor O'Deorain, pleading with the woman to stop, trying to make the stubborn Irish scientist change her ways, warning her that Overwatch would take her down if she did not stop. The geneticist didn't respond to any of the messages; it seemed as though the woman had simply dropped off the face of the earth. Failing that, she tried throwing herself at each and every nuance of Oasis law, trying to find some loophole the geneticist had exploited to get and stay hired. But Oasis law not only ignored Moira's dubious work, it actively _supported_ it.

In all the uproar caused by her day job and trying to take the geneticist down, she didn't notice the fractures beginning to form in her own team.

The echoes from Gerard's assassination shook Overwatch, especially with the knowledge that the murder had been committed by none other than the gentle ballet dancer married to him. The death, coupled by the inability to save the puppeteered French woman, unsettled everyone. Not long after, Ana lost an eye to a new Talon sniper, but was unable to give a full description of the shooter, clearly deeply disturbed by the experience. Reyes left first, after Ana's devastating injury. He'd been looking sickly for a while, and Angela had been tracking his case with some concern. She thought his choice understandable, considering his illness, and assumed he'd left for medical reasons. McCree resigned soon after, and not long after _that_ came the Petras Act, disbanding Overwatch and scattering its members.

Without the overarching support, she returned to Switzerland as a representative of their disaster relief corps. She tried to continue her research, but without Overwatch's funding, she didn't have the money to perform any but the most basic of experimental work, and certainly not anything that would further medical sciences. Moreover, what she read from Oasis' best science journals was off-putting at best. While she stagnated here, journals released by the newly-christened Minister of Genetics were published on a monthly basis, detailing the specifics of human genetic splicing using nanobots not just to cure disease, but to enhance the genome in new ways. Most disturbing of all, however, were the suggestions that such modifications could be made not just to somatic cells, but to the germline itself, resulting in a genetic change that would express itself for generations to come and a stronger, faster, hardier, and more intelligent human.

She'd dreaded this change ever since O'Deorain had told her about wanting the Minister of Genetics position. Making such alterations could have untold consequences in coming generations, and without any sort of constraints on genetic modification, unchecked splicing could do far more harm than good, both immediate and in the long run.

But, since O'Deorain was now queen bee of the largest and most progressive scientific hive on the planet, fuck the Third Geneva Convention's stipulations on international humanitarian law, right?

It seemed she would be forever trapped one step behind Moira and her creations, destined to watch in horror as the geneticist ran rampant across Oasis' patients and international law.

Until the Overwatch recall came through.

Desperate hope surged through her upon receiving the recall notice, and she returned to Overwatch's old command center to find Winston hard at work repairing things, and other old, familiar faces there to greet her; Lena, McCree, Ana, Mei, Reinhardt followed by Tobjorn, and Bastion. Over the next few months, they even gained new members; Lucio, Pharah, and Zenyatta, tailed, to her delight, by Genji.

But despite the reunion, they could not relax. Winston had briefed them on the situation: he'd initiated the recall because he'd been attacked by a Talon-affiliated soldier with the baffling ability to turn himself to smoke who'd called himself "Reaper". Ana brought up the fact she'd seen a drastically changed Amiele Lacroix, Gerard's unexpected assassin, mere seconds before the almost fatal shot that had destroyed her cybernetic eye and effectively ended her career in Overwatch, and Lena confirmed this report, adding the Talon sniper's physical appearance to the mix; blue skin, unnerving golden eyes, and a black widow spider tattoo stretched across her back.

The descriptions made Angela shiver. Such strange abilities and drastic changes to the Talon members' bodies indicated some bizarre technology…or genetic engineering. Moira may not be a nice person, but surely she wouldn't work for Talon, experimenting on innocents and inflaming the fires of conflict with her work. Surely she had accomplished her wishes without accepting help from known terrorists. Surely, _surely_ she wouldn't go _that_ bad.

Angela no longer would put anything past the Irish woman, though she desperately hoped that her theory wasn't true.

Overwatch had started pulling raids on Talon-affiliated compounds and crashing Talon supply drops with varying amounts of success, recovering tech and supplies from the terrorists. Angela found herself once again donning her Valkyrie suit and leaping into battle alongside her reunited comrades, the old, familiar adrenaline rush making her feel electrified, re-energized, young again. It felt almost good to watch Talon agents fall under her fire, debilitated, and even better to watch a wounded comrade's injuries heal under her ministrations and jump back into the fight. But she had never encountered Moira in any of these raids, and she dared to hope that the geneticist would never appear. Because if she did, Angela would have no choice but to take her out, threat to Overwatch that she posed. She supposed that the woman would only do the same for her. Who shot first was a matter of survival if they encountered one another.

Simple trigonometry.

Bullets whizzed overhead like a swarm of angry hornets, clipping the top of the table she was crouching behind and spraying her with sparks and tiny metal fragments. She cursed the situation again; Genji had run a little ahead to recon the area and gotten separated from the group, only to be pinned by enemy fire and injured. She had responded to his cry for help, but was met with stiff resistance before she could reach him, forcing her behind the desk. Three meters separated the wounded Genji and herself, but crossing the distance was impossible without being shot. She drew her Caduceus blaster and peeked out from behind the desk, ducking back behind with some choice German swears as rounds tore through the space her head had occupied milliseconds ago. The beaker on the desk exploded, showering her with glass and some liquid, which instantly found its way into the cracks in her Valkyrie suit, itching as it made contact with her skin. Some kind of irritant, but she didn't have time to worry about the itch. She gave her face a quick wipe with her sleeve and flicked the safety off her weapon, wondering just _how_ she was going to eliminate the three Talon guards that had them pinned down.

Her earpiece crackled, and Genji's labored breathing came through.

 _"Get ready…_ " he murmured. " _I will distract them."_

"Genji-" she started, warning him that he shouldn't risk himself for her, but her earpiece crackled again. He'd cut the link.

"Scheisse," she muttered, drawing and readying her other blaster. A moment of silence passed, and then she heard the guards holler, followed by gunshots. She popped up, located the three men, then hit them all, one after another. They toppled like scattered dominoes, and the hallway finally quietened. She leapt to Genji's aid.

He lay on the floor, clutching his side, where grafted cybernetics met living flesh. A row of deep red dots bled freely down his chiseled torso, staining his clothing with red. His chest heaved erratically, but it didn't look like something she couldn't fix.

"It's lucky they didn't have heavier weaponry," she noted, activating her Caduceus staff. Genji sighed as the nanobiotics went to work stitching his damaged flesh, the pain signals from the wounds abruptly stopping at the bullet holes healed before her eyes. He flexed, his muscles tensing, then rose to his feet.

"We must find the others," he said, holding a hand out to her.

"Go on ahead. I need to look around." She glanced at the surroundings. This wasn't the first time they'd crashed Talon locations and found labs, but this was certainly the largest of them so far. Maybe some morsel of data had escaped their careful purges…

"Be careful," the cyborg warned, then was gone again.

Angela took stock of her surroundings; broken glass and spilled chemicals stretched across the tables, bullet holes and bits of metal off the lab furniture scattered across the floor. She set her staff aside and weaved her way through the tangle of equipment, not wanting to consider what the long-gone Talon scientists had been doing in here. Her chest burned and itched from the chemical; she longed to scratch it, but there was no way she was going to take her Valkyrie suit off here and now. She eyed the emergency shower, but discarded the option. It would make noise, alerting whatever guard was left that someone was in here, and she didn't really want to stick around for too long anyway. God only knew what sort of fumes the haphazardly-mixing chemicals would make. She went straight for the computer desks and checked them for drives. No such luck, and with no time to hack in to the computers, she had to resort to hastily glancing through the file drawers in search of useful info.

She felt the gunshot before she heard it; the impact was so mighty it slammed her up against the filing drawers. The pain hit her a half-instant later, savage, breath-taking pain, and her grip on her blaster slipped. She crumpled, the weapon-blast still ringing in her ears, and tried to blink away the disorientation as she propped herself up, trying to face her attacker. A tall figure dressed in black, face obscured by a white mask, was standing over her, a shotgun pointed and still smoking.

"Any last words?" the figure growled in an unmistakably male and strangely familiar tone. That or it was the pain getting to her. Though her suit had begun to mend the wound, she could definitely feel shrapnel from her suit rubbing against her torn flesh and raw nerves. The man raised his weapon to her head, and she glared at him with as much defiance as she could muster. She wouldn't go out begging for her life to some Talon scum. The pain clawed at her mind; she slumped back to the floor, breathing heavily, her eyes closed.

"My, _my,"_ a familiar voice purred. "You're certainly out of your element, aren't you, Doctor?"

Angela opened her eyes and looked up at the speaker. A thin, sharp-faced figure with bright red hair and heterochromatic eyes smirked back at her, one hand on the masked man's shoulder.

" _You_ ," Angela hissed, horror and betrayal and rage clashing with the incredible pain of her wounds and making her head swim.

The woman glanced at the masked man, ignoring her comment. "Gabriel, you may go. I'll take care of this myself."

 _Gabriel?_ It couldn't be. But what if…what if it was?

His form dissolved into thick smoke even as his name leapt from her lips, her cry for her old Overwatch team member fading into silence.

Moira's smile widened. "Your archaic methods weren't enough to help Mr. Reyes. He was dying when he came to me, begging for help. I did what I could for him, but I'm afraid he's not the same man you remember. The treatment rather drastically altered his mind."

"You-" she spat, livid. Her breath caught amongst dizzying pain, and she had to stop speaking.

Moira snorted. "Spare me your hollow indignation, Dr. Ziegler. He made his decision. That you did not save him is only a failure on _your_ part, not some fault of his."

"He…deserves better," Angela gasped. "You're-"

"A monster?" Moira's lip curled. "So is our _guardian angel_ still looking out for everyone else, to their detriment?"

"If only to…protect them…from you…"

The Irish woman's smile grew downright nasty. "Look in the mirror sometime, Dr. Ziegler, and ask yourself how many people you've killed in the name of protecting them. And I don't just mean shooting them; no, I mean the thousands you've let die because you selfishly hoarded your advancements in medical technology."

"Don't you _dare. I'm_ not the one…"

Moira cut her off, taking advantage of the fact she couldn't speak properly. "Allied with terrorists?" She seemed to know exactly what Angela was thinking. "What does that matter? Some have died in the pursuit of my knowledge, certainly, but when I finish my research, I publishit precisely so that those who _need_ it can _access_ it, and in doing so, I enhance a great many more lives than I ruin. As for working for Talon, they are simply another source of funding." She paused. "People _want_ my research, whatever means I use to complete it. Who am I to deny them?" She smirked, then tilted her head and pressed a finger to her earpiece. "Moira here."

Out of the corner of her eye, Angela saw her blaster, lying just out of reach. She gritted her teeth and reached for it. Pain hit her like a bullet-train, and she almost blacked out. When she clawed her way back to some semblance of consciousness, she was sprawled at the geneticist's feet, her cheek resting against the cold floor. Moira chuckled, the wisps of luminous purple-and-ebony energy at her fingers fading. She lifted a perfectly-polished black shoe and kicked the weapon across the floor, far out of Angela's range, then crouched, hanging over Angela like an oversized carrion bird.

"Fighting has really changed you, hasn't it? All the sudden, you want to kill me. So ungrateful of what I've done for you," Moira noted softly, her thin lips twisted in a savage smirk. "Or maybe you don't remember the help I've given you? I would think you should; you're where you are right now because of me."

"You can't shame me," Angela hissed, propping herself off the floor.

The Talon woman laughed again. "Oh, I _know_ that. Think of it more as a reminder. Of all I've done to help you, of the many slights against me I've ignored."

"I saved your _life_ ," Angela reminded her, fury sizzling inside her chest.

"I saved my _own_ life. You would never have approved what I did." She smirked, her heterochromatic eyes sparkling with ill humor.

"Without me, where would _you_ be?" The painkillers that her onboard triage systems were dumping into her blood definitely dulled the pain, but they dulled _everything_. She was having trouble focusing on Moira's face, and she clung to consciousness like a life-raft, desperate to stay awake.

Moira tilted her head. "Very true. I suppose you think I still owe you."

Angela gritted her teeth and said nothing. The woman really was impossible.

"And I also suppose you're expecting me to either finish this little fight once and for all or just walk away. I am Talon, after all," the geneticist murmured, her tone scathing.

"I have nothing left to say to you. If you're going to kill me, do it quickly."

"You really don't know me that well, do you Doctor? I'm beginning to think our initial meeting was less by chance and more out of ignorant curiosity." Her cold hand gripped Mercy's cheek. "For once you've finally taken responsibility for what you've done. The truth is a dangerous thing, Dr. Ziegler. You never know what you'll uncover, and you have to be willing to accept the consequences."

Moira held out a hand, and a golden ball of light shimmered into being in her palm. "For old times' sake, Dr. Ziegler, and in hopes you've grown as a scientist. You could say it's a test; it will be interesting to see what _you_ do with a second chance." She looked straight into Angela's face, and the Swiss woman shifted under her piercing gaze. "Don't let me catch you again; I won't cover for you a second time."

Angela shuddered, gasping as the pain suddenly ceased. Moira stood up to her full and formidable height, then vanished in a cloud of smoke as if she'd never been. Angela tried to stand too quickly, to follow her to wherever she'd gone, to plead with her to listen in a desperate attempt to change her mind, but blood loss had its own ideas. She collapsed, insensate.


End file.
